


love language

by officialvampyr



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon Timeline, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, First Kiss, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mentioned Blue Lions Students (Fire Emblem), Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), very affectionate felix, very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21983386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officialvampyr/pseuds/officialvampyr
Summary: Felix is not the kind of person to seek out romance. He cannot imagine himself falling in love with anyone, nor performing the intricate rituals that come with courtship. But that all changed when Sylvain had kissed him, and Felix had not known inner peace since.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 13
Kudos: 224





	love language

**Author's Note:**

> hello welcome to my self-indulgent "felix cannot get enough of his dumb gay boyfriend" fanfic.
> 
> broke: felix hates public displays of affection  
> woke: felix Loves public displays of affection, because he loves sylvain, and he loves that sylvain loves Him.

Felix did not understand romance.

It was not as though he grew up with spectacular role models, after all; his parents’ marriage had been arranged, and while they claimed to love one another, it was not something as ground-breaking as poets and authors made it out to be. They were not openly-affectionate, as the noble girls and boys were in his youth. His parents did not exchange gifts or flowers, not like the youth did, but Felix could not understand that allure, either. Flowers died and gifts proved nothing more than the fact that there was coin residing in your pocket. He could not understand the desire to swap saliva with someone so passionately and brazenly, to swoon and fawn and gush. He could never imagine himself hiked up underneath someone, or over someone, so overwhelmed with desire that he could not contain it.

It was not a lack of _want_ , either. Felix knew of intimate wants. He had no problem imagining falling asleep with someone in his arms at night, nor imagining the dirtier, carnal aspects that came with it. The issue was finding someone who fit the bill. He had tried, many times, to imagine himself with some of his classmates at the Officer’s Academy, but it was difficult to tell if he found the girls in his class pretty, or if he merely thought them so because Sylvain was constantly whispering in his ear about them. Every time he tried to get close to one of them, he found them lacking in that spark.

That _goddamn_ spark.

He knew of this, too.

Ingrid spoke of it whenever she mentioned Glenn, but Felix still had doubts that his brother and childhood friend were deeply in love at the age of twelve and fourteen. She always said there was a spark. Ashe, too, mentioned this spark, whenever he recounted the stories of knights and princesses to him. Felix indulged him, listened to his stories. He never asked if Ashe had felt it himself, because Ashe was the sort of boy who was a little in love with everything—in some sense, he had to, in order to keep the fractured pieces of his self together. People had a tendency to use love as a crutch to keep themselves going; Ingrid, Ashe, and _especially_ Sylvain. It was a coping mechanism. For Ingrid, it was an escape; her fairytale knights would rescue her from her fate, her love the only currency she had in abundance, but it was not enough, would never be enough, to buy her family’s debt. For Ashe, it was a reminder; the world was cold and cruel, but love had saved him from dying an orphan neglected in the streets, and would continue to sustain him. For Sylvain, it was a distraction; loving someone else, or perhaps even pretending to, was easier than learning to love oneself.

Felix had other coping mechanisms. What he did not seek in another person, he sought with the end of his blade. He believed this to be the source of his lack of romantic understanding, the reason he could not find a spark.

But that all changed when Sylvain had kissed him, and Felix had not known inner peace since.

The experience was not, exactly, poetic. They were not caught in a downpour, huddled together under an awning. They were not conspicuously pressed together in a closet, or any other confined space. There were no dramatic confessions.

It had simply been he and Sylvain, alone on the parapets of Garreg Mach. The sun was heavy and low, Sylvain slouched against the ancient stone, letting the last warmth of the evening soak into his back. Felix was beside him, close enough that their arms brushed, while he leaned forward, forearms resting on the parapet. They simply existed, in comfortable silence. For all Sylvain’s nagging and droning, Felix did acknowledge that they shared an appreciation for quiet. Some spaces did not always need to be filled.

The space between them, evidently, was not one of those.

For all the times Felix played it back in his head, he was not sure how the kiss came to be. Perhaps that was why he did not see the poetry in it. One moment, they had simply been beside one another, casual in their confidence, in their companionship. Sylvain’s head had rolled to the side, directing his gaze from the fading sun to Felix instead. His gaze was like caramel, simmering under his lashes. Felix met his gaze. He did not need to ask his intentions. Sylvain leaned closer, seeming to wait for the younger man to dart away, spurred on when he didn’t. Imperceptibly drawn to him, unable to resist, Felix leaned into him, too. Still they hesitated, breaths mingling, centimeters apart, until Sylvain finally mustered up the brain cells necessary to finally kiss him.

It was soft and gentle. Somehow, it felt like they had kissed hundreds of times before. There was a familiarity to the way their lips slotted together, perfect and precise. It was only when Felix leaned further into him, Sylvain’s hand reaching for his hip, maneuvering him so that they were chest-to-chest, that they dared for something a little less soft.

It may not have been an author’s perfect rendition. It was not an idyllic sunset with bright splashes of colorful clouds, but a muted, average evening with no significance. However, there is poetry in simply being known and understood. There was poetry in that kiss; in the way Sylvain gently cradled him, in the way Felix hungrily sought for more. There was poetry in what came after; the way Felix dropped his head to Sylvain’s chest, the way Sylvain clasped his hands at the small of Felix’s back, cheek resting on the top of his head, simply content to hold him.

And the spark? Oh, it was not a spark at all. Felix was a lit match and Sylvain was a forest during a drought. Together, they burned spectacularly, endlessly. His lips still tingled from the blaze.

Felix did not understand romance, but he understood Sylvain, and as he thought about it more, he came to realize the two were closely tied. Romance was not a bouquet of roses from the market, but a cluster of sunflowers, as bright as his smile, or a crown of daisies in his wildfire hair. It was not candlelit dinners, but evening rides into town. It was, as it turned out, a box of chocolates, but only dark chocolate, because milk was too sweet for his appetite.

Novels were known for their clichés, and perhaps what Felix didn’t understand was that love had many languages.

It happened all at once. It was as if his world had been upturned; north became south, east became west. He doubted he would ever be able to find true north, though, for all his compasses pointed towards Sylvain. After that kiss, he understood the desire for closeness, the need to broadcast their intimacy. When they had first began their time at Garreg Mach, Felix was constantly throwing off Sylvain’s attentions. Every arm around his shoulder instigated a fight, every touch of his hand and teasing pinch was charged. It was still charged, now, but… distinctly different.

Sylvain’s magnetism pulled at him always, and he bemoaned how pathetic he was turning. He never thought he would feel such a way for anyone, let alone Sylvain, and somehow, the fact it was him made it _worse_. He was inevitable, Felix supposed. Childhood friends turned to lovers. Another cliché. He tried not to think about it too hard when he crowded next to Sylvain at dinner, shoulders pressed together, Sylvain smiling fondly and casting him secretive glances. _“Table’s crowded,”_ Felix would remark, even though it wasn’t, and after he had purposefully wedged between Sylvain and Annette. And if anyone noticed the way Sylvain’s hand disappeared halfway during dinner, slipping under the table to rest on Felix’s thigh, they were wise enough not to comment on it.

Felix could not get enough of Sylvain’s attentions.

It was another blessing that Sylvain did not seem to need clarification on said attentions. In his previous flings, Felix would often see Sylvain pressing some girl or boy against a wall, or a desk, any surface he could make-out with them on, or he would find them clambering into Sylvain’s lap. He did none of these with Felix. It was a different sort of attention; heads bent towards one another, sharing secrets and gossip, or simply murmuring their affections. It was Sylvain’s fingers tracing the back of his hand, gentle and comforting, before working his way to merely holding it, their fingers intertwined. Sometimes, of course, these little touches were not enough. Sometimes, they did nothing but stoke that fire in him, burning brighter, until Felix was practically dragging him somewhere private.

Not that Felix needed privacy, and certainly not that he was ashamed to be with Sylvain.

He simply liked having him to himself.

They showed off in other ways; Felix possessively walking arm in arm with him, the marks he left on Sylvain’s neck, the… _limp_ in Sylvain’s gate when he walked. It was obvious how people expected Sylvain to be the overly showy one of the pair, given his reputation, yet it was Felix who was constantly dropping kisses to Sylvain’s cheek, nudging his shoulder, initiating a hold. There was nothing more satisfying for Felix than Sylvain curled against his back, arms around his waist, chin resting on Felix’s head.

Every time he pulled Sylvain into a dark corner of Garreg Mach, he couldn’t help but revel in the absurdity of all this. He had never been insatiable, never been so utterly obsessed with someone, the way he was with Sylvain. When not at his side, he was seeking him out. When he was there, Felix stared at him so long it made his heart ache with _relief_ , a constant assurance that Sylvain was _his_. He doubted he could resist anything Sylvain asked of him (especially when his long fingers were fisted in Felix’s hair, his voice singing Felix’s praise as he went down on him), which made him grateful Sylvain never asked for much.

And he thought it would wear off.

His friends obsessed with love told him that was how it happened; the honeymoon phase wore off, and bickering ensued, or the lust would wear off like polish fading from a statue. He kept waiting for it; the day his body resisted the urge to fall into Sylvain’s gravity. It never happened, but it did take him a while to learn that it was no weakness of theirs; it was their strength. They were a unit, together. And that burn continued through the war, through every adversity.

Felix nestled against Sylvain’s side, curling into him. They lounged together on a chaise, watching the flames of a fire. The palace did not quite feel like home to them, and they were eager to retreat to Castle Fraldarius. Dimitri’s coronation was in a few days, though, and they could not retire just yet.

In their youth, it was common knowledge that Sylvain knew Felix better than anyone. He could read any mood, decipher any emotion. He knew how to quell him when he was upset, knew how to chase away his nightmares, knew how to distract and calm him. They underestimated that Felix knew Sylvain just as well, though, even if he did not show it as openly.

Now, he leaned up, draped across Sylvain, so he could run his fingers through his hair. Sylvain sighed easily, relaxed into his touch. Felix let his fingernails scrape his scalp. “Does it surprise you that we’re still together?” Felix asked. It was, perhaps, not the best question to ask, nor the most adequately worded, but it was what tumbled out of his mouth.

Sylvain chuckled, eyes fluttering closed. He shifted down, and Felix filled in the gap by spooning him. Sylvain dropped his head on Felix’s arm while his other continued to play with his hair. “What do you mean?” There were goosebumps on his skin, from the combination of his fingers and his breath on his neck.

“You weren’t exactly great at relationships, and I…” He smiled to himself. “I never thought I’d fall in love with someone.”

“Why’s that, beloved?”

_Beloved_. He still felt tingly when Sylvain used that word. “Maybe I didn’t believe I deserved it. Maybe I thought one of us would fuck it up by now.”

Sylvain turned his head, slightly, lips brushing the underside of Felix’s jaw. “You do deserve it.”

“Maybe I always knew it was you, somehow, and no one else interested me.” He was quiet for a moment, pensive. Sensing he had more to say, Sylvain did not respond, merely hummed, continued to press soft kisses to Felix’s throat. “You’ve always been there for me. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for that. You’ve always seen me as an individual, not Glenn’s shadow, nor Dimitri’s.”

“You cannot thank me for treating you like a person, Fe,” he chuckled warmly.

The affection rippled through him, warm and raucous. Over the years, they had perfected speaking each other’s love languages. They knew each other thoroughly, inside and out. Felix preferred actions, but Sylvain preferred affirmations. “I can. I will. Thank you. I love you.” He dipped his head again, kissed him briefly on the lips. This ignited something in Sylvain, and he arched up, hungering for more. “You know how we always talked about getting married?”

Sylvain laughed again, even warmer now, a bonfire contained in human form. “Mm, I _may_ recall,” he replied coyly.

It was often that they’d whisper it during the war. Little sentiments to keep them going. Promises that they would make it through the fight, to build their future together. Sylvain whispering sweet anecdotes in his ear before they slept, huddled in a cramped tent on their way to or from a fight. _Someday, my love, we’re going to have nothing but plush beds and endless time together. So much you’ll get sick of me._ Felix had chuckled, curled closer to him, and answered, _I’ll never get sick of you._

“There’s a ring, somewhere in this room. I intend to ask for your hand.”

Sylvain was not surprised, but he did shiver in Felix’s arms. “Oh good, I thought I was going to wither away due to old age before you’d ask.”

Felix laughed. “You could have asked.”

“Maybe I was planning on it.”

Felix looked at him, eyes narrowing. There was an unspoken challenge there. Sylvain grinned, finally stole his kiss, and settled back onto the sofa, content.

“Who would’ve thought you’d be such a romantic, Fe?” Sylvain hummed softly.

His brows furrowed for a moment, a laugh rumbling through his chest before he could contain it. Felix still did not believe he understood romance, especially not enough to consider himself a _romantic_ , but he understood Sylvain, and that was all he needed to know.

**Author's Note:**

> if you wanna talk more p l e a s e hit me up:  
> twitter: [@mitochondribae](https://twitter.com/mitochondribae)  
> tumblr: [@officialvampyr](http://officialvampyr.tumblr.com/)


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